George & Mike Kuchar

USA Rockefeller Fellow

Media

2006

San Francisco, CA

Legendary independent filmmakers George and Mike Kuchar defined the low-budget, high-camp/pop aesthetic for subsequent auteurs such as Andy Warhol, John Waters, and David Lynch. The Kuchars use emphatically untalented actors, basic technology, and bare-bones plot lines to create quirky and hilarious personal visions. Raised in the Bronx, they made their first films as teenagers in the 1950s and participated in New York’s underground film scene in the 1960s. In 1971 the San Francisco Art Institute hired George to teach filmmaking, and he has been a profound influence on countless young directors. Mike, who works as a cinematographer in addition to making his own films, divides his time between New York and George’s San Francisco apartment. George has been honored with retrospectives of his work at the Museum of the Moving Image in Queens and at San Francisco’s Castro Theater.